By: Nyima Sillah
The Spokesman of the opposition United Democratic Party, Almamy Fanding Taal has called for the resurrection of the disregarded draft constitution that was thrown away by the parliamentarians
In an interview with The Voice Yesterday, Mr. Faal said: “The National Assembly has majority and minority leaders, and other political parties. I don’t think it is beyond the genius of the drafting process or the legislative processes to come up with a part way whereby a constitution that was rejected in 2020 is brought back to the legislative process because that is equally demanded of parliament.
The rejected draft constitution was initiated by the regime of President Adama Barrow after a change of regime in 2016 and was approved by the national assembly but was rejected by the parliament when it was tabled for final endorsement amid avalanche public reaction.
However, in a recent interview with this medium, the opposition UDP spokesman and a former high court judge Almamy Tall launched a fresh call for the coming of the rejected draft constitution which was approved by the parliament.
“It was parliament that created the CRC if at all, it is necessary to set up a new structure legally by passing a new law to set up specialist or expert committee or select committee or whatever the means are but through legislative means to achieve this objective of getting our constitutional revision process back on track,” he opined.
Mr. Taal said the country has institutions that are established by law to help make better laws, and the responsibility is with parliament but does not have the necessary autonomy and technical component to put all these processes together.
He advanced: “Everybody can agree that the 1997 constitution is not serving the purpose that it was anticipated for. Not only that, we have already done expensive and considerable work to come up with a new constitution which generally was consultative and widely admired even though it is not perfect.
Mr. Taal said there is a need to find common ground that will be in the interest of the country for a new constitution which will be a necessary step to speed up the transitional process to do away with dictatorship and restore confidence in the citizens.